Steven Willinger, founding Partner of the Blockchain Builders Fund, is also a co-lead of the Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, co-teacher of MS&E447 Blockchain Entrepreneurship, and the BASS event series. Before joining Blockchain Builders Fund, Steven led investments at Coinbase Ventures, where he gained deep exposure to every corner of the crypto ecosystem and supported hundreds of founders.
He previously worked as an investor at Capital One, a Product Manager at Blockstream, and wore many hats during his time at Google. A prolific participant in the space, Steven has been an investor, advisor, miner, yield farmer, and more. He earned his MBA from Stanford GSB in 2017, where he also founded the GSB Crypto Trading Club.
You’ve worn nearly every hat in crypto — from miner to investor to educator. How have those different roles shaped your approach at Blockchain Builders Fund?
My crypto journey started while I was at Stanford Business School after spending seven years at Google. I’d bought some Bitcoin earlier, but it wasn’t until Ethereum launched that things clicked.
I took Dan Boneh’s CS251 class, which ended up being the jumping-off point. From there, I got involved with Blockstream, led crypto investing at Capital One Ventures, and later joined Coinbase Ventures.
All those experiences, plus staying close to Stanford through my relationships with my partners Gil Rosen and Kun Peng, teaching, and running accelerators, helped me see investing as more than transactional.
At BBF, we get involved with the teams.
Why did you choose to double down on Stanford as a base for your work in crypto?
Stanford’s unique. It attracts some of the most talented and ambitious people I’ve ever met. But more importantly, it encourages entrepreneurship as the primary way to change the world.
That culture makes it a perfect place to support blockchain builders.
We’ve been able to use that foundation to run not just the accelerator, but a broader funnel of programs like our MSE447: Blockchain Technologies and Entrepreneurship, Blockchain Application Summit Stanford (BASS), Cryptography and Blockchain Alumni of Stanford (CBAS), and the Stanford Blockchain Accelerator.
They’re all designed to increase company formation and improve odds of success for student and alumni founders.
Tell us more about MSE447. Why is it so central to your mission?
MSE447 is the tip of the spear. It’s education and inspiration rolled up together. We bring students up to speed on crypto primitives — consensus, DeFi, legal frameworks — and bring in world-class builders and investors like Vitalik Buterin, Chris Dixon from a16z, and Toly from Solana to share their invaluable perspectives.
We also focus on building up our community. We host pizza nights after class, encourage networking, and help students find jobs or co-founders. It’s a pipeline. And because we teach it every year, regardless of market cycles, it’s become an institutional cornerstone.
Crypto can be cyclical. How do you maintain momentum and interest through bear markets?
That’s a big part of what we’ve tried to fix. Before our programs existed, clubs and accelerators would disappear during bear markets, and the institutional knowledge would vanish with them.
We’ve done our best across the class, the accelerator, and the event series to build persistence. Even during the down cycles, we keep showing up.
That compounds: knowledge, networks, founder confidence. It’s one of the most meaningful contributions we’ve made.
Is Stanford’s model replicable elsewhere? Or is its success unique to the school’s ecosystem?
Stanford is special, but it’s not alone. Look at Berkeley, they’ve done a phenomenal job with Blockchain at Berkeley.
We do believe the Stanford model is replicable, though. That’s why we’ve been helping IC3 start up their own accelerator program, using the curriculum we’ve built.
Their pilot went great, all five teams got funded, and now it’s becoming a recurring program. We’re also in talks with other universities to help them create similar offerings.
How closely are Blockchain Builders Fund and the accelerators like Stanford’s and IC3’s connected?
They’re totally separate entities. The accelerators are free and non-dilutive — we don’t take equity in those teams. But as general partners of BBF, we volunteer to run those programs, teach classes, and organise events.
The overlap is in relationships. Helping teams at that early stage lets us show we can be value-add investors. It’s good for the ecosystem, and it puts us in a strong position to invest when the time is right, without any kind of adverse selection you sometimes get with highly dilutive programs.
What’s the support structure like for founders inside the accelerator?
There are two main layers: curriculum and coaching. The curriculum covers crypto-specific topics: technical fundamentals, DeFi vs TradFi, legal structures, marketing in crypto, and more. We open-source a lot of that material too, via our YouTube page.
But the real magic is in the coaching. My partners and I meet with teams one to two times a week.
We set strategic goals, bring in advisors, help them prepare for fundraising, and make warm intros when the time is right. That’s where our experience and network come into play.
Let’s talk about the fund itself. What stage do you invest in, and what kinds of projects are you backing?
We’re happy to be the first check — sometimes even pre-incorporation. That said, we’ll also invest through pre-seed and seed, and occasionally follow on at Series A.
Average check size is about $500,000, typically at sub-$25 million valuations.
We invest across the stack: AI, DeFi, payments, crypto infra, and social apps. Some founders are building for visionary, global-scale futures.
Others are tackling near-term, very real use cases, especially in payments. For example, Immersve is working with Mastercard to enable stablecoin-based merchant payments, while Aeon is making it easier for QR-based payment networks in Asia to accept crypto.
Do you follow a sector thesis, or are you more founder-focused?
We’re definitely generalists. You need some sector thesis to evaluate deals, but for us, it’s 110% about the founder or founding team.
We want high-vision, high-context builders. We’re lucky to go where great founders take us.
What kind of support do you offer founders after the check clears?
We treat them like accelerator teams. Even if they didn’t come through the program, we establish a rigorous cadence in the first few months.
Weekly check-ins, strategy sessions, help with go-to-market, hiring, PR through our events, and of course, fundraising.
Because we sprint hard early, we build a deep connection and understanding of their needs. Over time, we can scale back the intensity, but that trust and context stay in place.
What’s exciting you right now? Any standout teams or trends?
Too many to name, but a few stand out. Zero Gravity is building a full-stack AI L1 with some breakthroughs in onchain inference.
Almanax is using AI to scan code and reduce smart contract vulnerabilities — Vitalik’s code included.
We’ve also backed Nexus Labs, which is building a ZK-based L1 with highly parallelised proving and millions of testnet nodes.
And on the RWA side, we’re backing yield-bearing stablecoin projects like Unipay, led by veteran DeFi founders.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to a first-time blockchain founder?
Don’t try to build in a basement. Crypto is community-driven. You need to engage, make friends, understand the landscape, and know who the grifters are.
Start with high-TVL ecosystems like Ethereum or Solana. Go to side events — they’re often better than the main conferences — and get involved.
Builders are the priority citizens in this space. If you can code, you’ll be welcomed with open arms.
We’re hosting a few events this summer and would love to invite your readers:
- BASS at the Science of Blockchain Conference: https://lu.ma/BASS25
- Ethereum New York Week: https://lu.ma/ethereumnyc